Remember when we kept on hearing that the Tea Party movement and contemporary conservatism was focused on economic/fiscal issues and that social issues were totally on the back burner? Good times, good times.

Analysis: Republicans really dislike Romney. He's weird and would be a bad candidate and would lose. The Santorum thing is a protest vote which will keep happening until the Republicans realize they have accidentally picked him as their candidate.

Personally, I'm not a fan of Andrew Sullivan's term "Christianism", but it's a workable single-word term for the sort of religious authoritarianism one finds among a subset of right-wing American Christians. Fortunately, they aren't a majority of Christians and it would be nice if a better term was available for this particular mob, but Sullivan's terminology will have to work for now.

They cannot destroy Santorum with a false accusation of ethics violations causing him to be thrown out of Congress.

They are afraid of trying to destroy Santorum for having a weird religion.

So all they have left is another 14 million dollar TV buy with commercials carpet bombing a sinister Santorum who is actually rumored to have served in the Congress for 16 years...yes, that is the Congress which was filled with whores and thieves and pool halls.

He's not my information broker, but he has Santorum's number on this point. And Sullivan's description of Santorum would fit Gingrich (and his voters) nicely. So the phenomenon is well-described in this circumstance.

Remember when we kept on hearing that the Tea Party movement and contemporary conservatism was focused on economic/fiscal issues and that social issues were totally on the back burner? Good times, good times.

Nobody sees any of the Tea Party organizations pushing Santorum.

And it's GodZero who put social issues in the center ring.

Not the Tea Parties, not contemporary Conservatives.

And as those who've been paying attention know, Santorum is only around because nobody thought him worthy of attention until now.

I've followed Rick closely for two decades -- he's not insane or destructive or a revolutionary marxist like the current resident. He's a little lazyish and a homebody, but no golf and no wagyu or concerts. His wife's in charge. But he'll do well.

I can say beyond any doubt that he is for the working man, just like Lincoln's platform.

Somefeller - The interesting thing about Sullivan's rant is not his bigoted anti-Christian perspective - but a core truth he is just repeating what Ron Paul said when he ripped into Santorum, DeLay, and Bush in the days of the Terri Schaivo Fiasco.

From Congressional Record, Apr 6, 2005. Ron Paul Excerpts:

"The biggest shortcoming of the Christian Right position is its adamancy for protecting life in the very early, late, and weakened stages, while enthusiastically supporting aggressive war that results in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths."

And

"There's little hesitation by the conservative right to come to Congress to promote their moral agenda even when it's not within the jurisdiction of the federal government to do so. Take for instance the funding of faith-based charities. The process is of little concern to conservatives if their agenda is met by passing more federal laws and increasing spending. Instead of concentrating on the repeal of Roe vs. Wade and eliminating federal judicial authority over issues best dealt with at the state level, more federal laws are passed, which strictly speaking should not be the prerogative of the federal government."

We've reached and passed the tipping point on getting free stuff from the government. Now so many people get stuff and don't want to loss it, that they will vote Democrat to keep the gravey train coming. And next stop on that train is Greece.

National Review Corner had a good item today on Hispanics in California. The idea that Hispanics have Republican values is proven wrong. They want the free stuff, hence are solidly voting Democrat.

Romney will be the nominee, and I am very pleased about that. I'm not looking for a charismatic leader, I am not looking for an ideologue, I am not looking for inspiration, or for an exciting personal narrative. Those are stupid things to expect of a presidential candidate. I am looking for a competent manager. As far as I can tell, there is only one of those in the running in either political party.

"The biggest shortcoming of the Christian Right position is its adamancy for protecting life in the very early, late, and weakened stages, while enthusiastically supporting aggressive war that results in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths."

Fen - you don't read too well. The quote was from Ron Paul in the midst of the Terri Schiavo Fiasco in 2005.My post was all about Ron Paul, not Sullivan, railing at Big Government Christian Right people.Sully just said the same stuff.

It's going to be a lot of fun to watch Romney fail against Obama, or perhaps even win only to not be able to deal with the mess. Gingrich at least had a chance. I want him back. Too bad that milk toast, but good looking Romney, with women cheering him on (what's up with that, Ann and Ann) is still the default candidate. It's either Obama or Obama lite.

I've sounded off on the Santorum surge here and elsewhere, and now I just feel too drained and depressed to say any more about it.

But Palladian, 7M, Cedarford, edutcher, Fen, lewsar, el polacko and others (heh, a motley crew) have said things on this thread I'll co-sign.

OK I'll just make one point. I dispute somefeller's 9:31 claim that Santorum's popularity is due to "the militarist, big government Christianism that is at the heart of the current GOP".

Fen's reply is to the point: nope. It's just that Santorum is the latest not-Romney. Santorum hasn't been "vetted" at all (compared to Romney and Gingrich); so he's an (apparently) anodyne empty vessel-- untouched by the Newt vs. Romney shitstorm-- on whom primary voters are currently projecting their political hopes and frustrations (sound familiar?).

And the base's opposition to Romney (which is overstated, cf. Jay Cost's analysis) is not about militarism, an affection for big government (hardly! Romneycare is Romney's cardinal sin), or Christianism: if it was Christianism, how do you account for multiple adulterer Newt's recent surge? Or Cain's popularity (outlasting Cain's early bimbo eruptions)? Though Romney's Mormonism probably makes it somewhat harder for many Republican voters to warm up to him.

IMO it's about populist sentiment toward the so-called "GOP establishment" and the MSM (much of it justified, but IMO much of it sadly misguided, at least as currently manifested, aimed, acted out). A lot of it is frustration over GOP members of congress disappointing Tea Party expectations; a lot is resentment left over from the calvary of Palin, which they're now putting (illogically) at the feet of Romney-- qua stand-in for the "GOP establishment". (This explains the narrative concoction-- ludicrously implausible, but compelling to many-- of Newt's Palinesque anti-establishment martyrdom.)

That the base is picking Santorum as the latest vessel (the latest not-Romney) to express their frustration (Santorum, who doesn't have a Tea Party bone in his body) is an indication that this is a kind of drama being played out, with assigned roles (roles assigned to Romney, to Santorum, to Newt, etc.) that don't have much to do with reality, i.e. the actual political-ideological substance of those candidates, their political history or their proposed policies.

But that's nothing new for primaries or general elections, as we all know.

I just don't see him making it long term. As someone pointed out above, Santorum is the last ABR candidate standing, and so finally getting his couple weeks of surge while he and his record are dissected.

But, I just don't see him overcoming Romney. He is a social conservative, when we are looking for a fiscal conservative, and a legislator when we are looking for a competent CEO to rework the government after 4 years of Obama and 6 of the Democrats in power, and the disaster that they have foisted on us during that time, as a trillion or so a year was added to the deficit at exactly the time we could afford it the least. Oh, and Santorum is someone who lost a crucial swing state the last time he ran for office by a wide margin. Loser loser, double loser.

I think you underestimate Santorum due to your antipathy. He may in fact be stronger than the uninspiring Romney who's frequent gaffes make me wonder how he'd fair in the general. Romney's money makes him the most natural class warfare target, not so with Santorum who has working class roots and would challenge Obama for the Union center left.

Sure he looses the social left (this blog), but honestly, there are so few votes in play amongst that group by comparison.

Further in the electoral sense the South will likely go Rep while the coasts Dem. The key states of Ohio and Pennsylvannia are decisive here and I think Santorum could be very competitive in just those states.

The anti-religious attacks from Obama are directly benefiting Santorum.

We are going to see a huge preference cascade that results in an easy GOP POTUS win, GOP gains in the House, and GOP takeover of the Senate.

The only reason the preference cascade hasn't started is because the left-leaning news media is propping up any/all half-assed, stupid, transparent b.s. that the Obama Administration and liberal pundits claim.

The cocooning and whistling past the graveyard on the part of the left is reaching epic proportions.

There is only one thing that scares me:Fear that the GOP squanders the majorities (just like they did in 2002) by doing nothing to dismantle the Leftist-Socialist spending machine.

Hopefully they've learned their lesson this time, and will dismantle the entitlement system piece by piece, instead of trying to co-opt it and replace Democrats as a vote-buying "Santa Claus".

Agreed, I’ve talked to a number of my friends who caucused for Santorum last week and it came down to that they think that Santorum is “more conservative” than Romney (maybe on social issues but I’m not seeing it on fiscal issues) and that supporting the “most conservative” candidate in the primary will help pull Romney to the right. I think also the fact that the (non-binding) caucuses/primary last Tuesday happened right after HHS announced that it was going to force Catholic hospitals to pay for birth control, Susan G Kommen reaffirmed its support for Planned Parenthood and the Ninth Circuit overturned California’s constitutional amendment on the definition of civil marriage probably helped to motivate social conservatives to turn out.

At the end of the day though, I don’t think that this is a sustainable movement but it does raise a concern I have about Romney in the general election. We’ve seen a number of “Anybody But Romney” candidates peak and then crash in the primary because at the end of the day, they couldn’t stand up to scrutiny and people weren’t so much motivated to support them as they were to vote against Romney. If Romney is the nominee, I don’t have much concern that he’ll stand up to scrutiny (although it’s easy to distort someone’s business dealings and political record particularly with a compliant media) but he needs to focus on making the case for why he would do a better job and not just “Anybody But Obama.” Negative ads work and they helped to seal Gingrich’s fate but I’d feel a lot better if Romney won Super Tuesday after campaigning on “this is my vision/ideas/plans for getting America back on the right track.” Once he does that, I think he’ll come closer to sealing the deal.

I'm long past caring and fast approaching apathy. If the best our political class can put out is Santorum against a dimwitted Marxist then we really don't derserve to survive as a nation.

I mean we got to this point because a significant portion of the populace looks to the Federal government for everything from health care to ass wiping techniques with an ever decreasing number if people to fund all the goodies. Then you have enough people like our resident liberal geniuses who think we can just keep spending away and its all good cause the 1% will pay for it.

Not so much wit as an accurate observation. Obama claimed in his book that when in college he was drawn to radicals and Marxists. He's had a few in his inner circle as President and hes demonstrated that he's not very bright.

"not very bright"...so a not very bright person can graduate from Harvard law, after becoming editor of its law review, and then eventually win the presidency of the United States...I guess our country isn't so special after all...

I am really going to be saddened if Santorum gets this nomination and that gets Obama re-elected.

The problem seems to be that the far left and far right seem to be most motivated to vote in primary elections. I would rather see more average people. There's also a lot of anti-Mormon bigotry going on under the surface, particularly in places that don't have significant Mormon populations and people only know of them from gossip their hear from others. (I'm not Mormon, raised Episcopal, but married a Mormon and know many and travel to Utah often to visit her family members. The scariest thing is the wheat grinder and green Jell-O. Believe me, they are just normal, average folks).

Last I looked, Santorum was beating Romney by only one point in his home state. That should tell you something right there.

But there is a huge "not Romney" focus among the far right and I believe it is based on anti-Mormon bigotry but expressed as whatever excuse they can find this week because they can't come right out and say it.

as much as machine sounds arrogant, he's right. Right now, Virginia is pushing for a personhood act. But unlike Mississippi where it was voted on by the general public, it looks like it could be placed by govt edict (which is political suicide reminiscent of the early 90s). If that comes to past (which I believe will be toothless as soon as it becomes official due to male & female outrage)it would be the Gift Obama's been waiting for and would swing both fi-cons and women his way.